The Sleeper
by VonGikkingen
Summary: DOTTIE UNDERWOOD is a woman out of her time. Captured by Hydra and woken, decades later, she finds herself in a world she can't begin to comprehend. Faced with threats she wasn't prepared for...
1. The Asset

"I'm sorry – you need me to _what_ …?"

"Take the asset out of the freezer and start reconditioning her," he repeats with the quite the annoyed I-know-you-heard-me-the-first-time-and-you're-just-wasting-my-time-asking-me-to-repeat-it expression.

Now _this_ would be the perfect moment to remind him of several facts, mainly that this is not even close to my area of expertise…

"Has anyone seen my dad…?" comes a voice from around waist height then, forcing us both to look down to locate the source of the interruption. The interruption I was secretly hoping for, but... Yeah, in my imagination it didn't have the form of about the most heartbreaking thing one can see in a secret Hydra facility.

It's one thing to sell your soul for research funds – something I can hardly judge anyone for since I've made that horrible, life-threatening decision myself. But to then actually pull this bring-your-daughter-to-work-day thing is just a whole new level of messed up. I might be no expert but no way are babysitters so hard to find…

"He's in his lab," says my supervisor dismissively, sending the girl on her way with an angry gesture indicating the direction.

"She knew that. He's _always_ in the lab. She only asked us because she's so desperate for human contact she's actually willing to talk to certifiably insane scientists of our caliber."

"Your point…?" he replies, obviously not seeing what that has to do with anything.

"You know… The fact you're not seeing it is really speaking volumes."

"Are you really trying to claim the moral high ground? You have been here longer than me," he reminds. Just to be an asshole, which is very much in character for him. "Now go get her out of the freezer and start making her a useful part of this organization."

"Yeah. Sure. I'll just _do that_ ," I say, making a face. "I'll do some science at her until she's all compliant and ready to do our bidding without reservations. You do know that as developed as our techniques are we're _not_ perfect. I mean… That _is_ what you got out of the fact that the posterboy for Hydra brainwashing snapped out of his programming and is now at liberty. Because that's what _I_ got from that story. Quite the punchline," I add with a smile that is obviously a little too innocent for his liking. Well, tough. The day I start caring about sparing his feelings will be the day I might as well turn into a proper, cackling, openly unhinged mad scientist...

" _That_ ," he replies, staring daggers at me, "is why we need to do something about our roster of operatives. Activating _her_ is a direct consequence of the loss of the… Winter Soldier," he finishes. In a tone that makes it clear he always found that particular nickname as over the top as most of the scientific staff around here did.

"Can't wait to hear what ridiculous nickname we'll be assigning her," I mutter as I turn on the heel and head for the elevator. Because what he calls _the freezer_ is a couple of floors bellow, appropriately enough. Where else you keep the monsters…?

I stop though, just before entering it and turn to the little girl I know is still loitering around, since her plan never was to locate her father. She really just wanted to talk. To have someone acknowledge her existence...

"Hey, kid…? Do you feel like having a ghost of Christmas yet to come moment…?" I say to her. Obviously catching her by surprise.

"Does this have something to do with muppets?" she frowns, visibly confused.

I snort even as it's further proof this is one hell of a sad situation. Because of course she immediately thought of muppets rather than Dickens and his heavy-handed, in-your-face moral lesson about being a decent person. She would. Because she's _twelve…_

"What I mean is… Do you ever think about the future? What you're going to become – and how is that person being shaped by all this…?" I ask, immediately seeing that those questions are a little too existential for her to just take in her stride. "What I'm trying to say is… I used to be like you. My mom brought me to creepy secret labs. I missed out on almost everything a childhood should be and then, before I knew it, I was wearing a labcoat and being ordered around by carrier psychopaths who treat people like weapons and don't see the problem with your father bringing you here. Are you getting what I'm trying to say?"

"Maybe," she says, her already serious expression growing more grim by the second.

"I don't know if you have any family out there, but… If there's _anyone_ who can take you in, you better start working on making that happen. You can't count on your father here. He's too busy trying to stare the universe into submission with brief breaks for naively thinking his research can't be eventually weaponized…"

"Mom doesn't really have the time…" she says, looking away rather than finishing that sentence. Which is saying it all and somehow making this even sadder.

I sigh.

"So both of your parents are self-obsessed assholes," I say, making her eyes go big at my choice of language and involuntarily giggle at the same time. "That's tough. And unfair and I'm sorry. But if that's the situation you're stuck in, well… Go with the safer option for now. In a few years you'll be old enough to sue them for emancipation. Right now the priority is getting out of here. This is no place for you. Not because every single person here is dangerous in their own psychotic way but because… Well, experiments go wrong. Labs blow up," I add, pulling up my sleeve to briefly show her some of my more gruesome burns from the last workplace I had to vacate in a hurry. "Hydra doesn't care. They think in numbers, not _lives_. But, kid… this is the only life you're ever gonna get. If you don't fight to protect it no one else will."

Which is where I stop myself. This is obviously too much of a reality check. No one else would have told her this and she needed to hear it – which doesn't change the fact I feel like a monster for going there.

"You're right," she says and she sounds _very_ young just then. "I was going to ask him if I could go back… But…"

"You don't want to have that conversation because it's going to hurt. Because it's one thing to suspect he will barely notice you're gone and another thing completely to have it confirmed."

She nods, now blinking back tears. To her credit she does keep that outburst of very understandable emotions at bay. When she turns to face me again she looks like someone willing to do the hard thing.

"Getting out of here is the best thing you can do for yourself," I say, again. More because it's more something I need to say than something she needs to hear, since I obviously already sold her on the whole _self-preservation first_ thing.

"Did you really used to be like me…?" she asks then. "Or is that just something you..."

"I was nothing like you, kid," I interrupt, though I do try to smile to soften the words. "I had the run of top-secret labs since age four. So… you know… your dad might not be _the worst_. There are worse parents out there. And I had a double dose of those. Think Victor Frankenstein level of _I don't give a fuck about the natural order, I do what I want_ …"

"You swear a lot," she grimaces. I just shrug in a _it's a coping mechanism_ way.

"Oh, this is nothing. Come check on me after I've woken up the Russian sociopath they want me to make fully operational… I'll be showing off my vocabulary to its fullest extent by the time I'm done with her. Or she with me," I say, making a face even as it dawns on me that _that_ was definitely in the shouldn't-be-telling-this-to-a-twelve-year-old territory.

" _What_?" she grins.

"Oh, you know - something that makes me a truly terrible person. So go win me back some good karma points and get your father to put you on the first flight out of here," I say before pushing the elevator button again and strategically retreating from this conversation. I do wink at her through the closing door, though, just to hear her laugh that pure, joyous laughter only children can manage.

This would be the perfect time to start wondering if I ever laughed like that, but I can do without the existential crisis that would inevitably lead to. Besides – I have work to do…

"Mainly figuring out what do I even call you… Ida… Dorothy… unpronounceable Russian name we're not even sure was what they called you before the Red Room took you…" I say under my breath, frowning down at the file before looking over at the cryogenic coffin. "That alone is gonna be one long conversation, isn't it…?"

In the end, though, it doesn't take all that long.

"Dottie," she says sleepily.

"Do you know where you are, Dottie…?" I say, forcing a smile because this is about to only get worse from here and I might as well try to seem a friendly face.

"No," she says, still seeming unfocused.

I tell her.

Her expression changes abruptly – the sleepiness that appears to have been an act to make her seem harmless is gone completely. Replaced by anger and just a flicker of fear in her eyes, gone in a heartbeat.

It's too late though - I've seen it now. I know the secret. She still has the capacity to fear. "Would you like me to tell you what year it is…?" I ask.

"No," she says and her voice shakes almost imperceptibly.

But I'm the evil scientist here and she's merely the subject and therefore not allowed to have a preference. So I tell her anyway.

Things only get worse from there…


	2. The Pact

"… We're losing most of her skillset in any case. The amount of information she'll need to catch up on to be the kind of asset she was for Leviathan back in the day… Yeah, I don't think that's doable. She can't navigate life in this century. The likelihood of her slipping up over something we didn't think to include in her re-education because we couldn't have foreseen it'll become an issue is too great," I conclude despite finding myself face to face with about the worst skip-to-the-good-news expression I've seen of late. "You can still drop her in a warzone and watch her decimate the enemy, because physically she's as formidable as ever. But if you hoped for someone who can fake their way through social situations… She's going to completely miss a popcultural reference everyone who grew up in the nineties wouldn't have even registered and there goes her cover. She's revealed as someone out of her time and we lose the advantage we were hoping for."

"What a long and convoluted way of telling me we do _not_ have the Winter Soldier replacement we were hoping for."

"Well, if you don't want convoluted maybe put a professional on this. Because – and I've been saying this for over a week now – _this is not really my area of expertise_. I deal with brains in a completely different context," I reply, holding his eyes and _not_ putting up with this nonsense. "As in when they don't talk back at me. I can tell you that despite the appearances she's not the kind of certified sociopath we like because the part of her brain dealing with empathy? That's all still in working order. They just beaten her out of the habit of using it. But to ask someone like me to make a final call on whether or not we have a superspy material is just wasting everyone's time. Get an intelligence expert to evaluate her."

"We are in process of acquiring one," he informs me tonelessly.

"Sir, all due respect, we're all adults here. Just say _we're kidnapping one_. We all know that's what we do here, right?" I say, looking around at the support stuff who, yeah, seem unbothered by me spelling it out. Because why would they? It's just another act of gratuitous villainy the more proactive members of Hydra are up to. No one has any illusions about that.

"Forgive me for saying this, _Doctor_ ," he says with just a hint of a smile, "but you seem to be really struggling with this assignment. Normally you at least attempt to hide your distaste for your work. What's different about this subject…?" he says and leaves it there. Though he might as well have said _is her sad backstory getting to you?_

"I'm struggling with this assignment because I have the wrong skillset for it. It has nothing to do with whether or not I'm empathizing because, again, _I know what we do here_ ," I reply.

There's no need to add that since they paid for my education and majority of my research and on at least one occasion broke me out of prison I'm the last person that's likely to start making waves.

The other scientists in the complex might be either truly that naïve or so good at staying in denial that they might be able to someday claim they didn't know. Not me. I always knew. I grew up knowing – and isn't that its own, special flavor of tragic…?

"Just assign dealing with her to someone else so I can go back to doing what I'm actually good at."

"Why, of course, Doctor," he says in that dangerously calm tone that's meant to remind me that I'm not the one giving orders around here, _he is_.

This would be the perfect moment to start glaring at him or straight ask him something along the lines of _what the fuck do you want from me?_ Both options that can only be described as bad for my long term survival. Which he knows, hence baiting me into an outburst of some kind. Because this is his idea of fun, being just naturally malicious – as all people who seem to do well in Hydra are. And isn't _that_ a pattern worth remarking on...?

"How long until you _acquire_ your expert?" I ask instead, in a perfectly calm, reasonable tone, just to let him know he can keep dreaming of getting a raise out of me.

At the end of the day I'm the intellectual superior of all the trigger happy Hydra footsoldiers and I'm just gonna continue showing off that fact until someone loses their patience and shoots me for it. And bleeding out I'll still go out of my way to remind them that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent...

That's what I tell myself anyway. Though as soon as the meeting wraps up I do the slightly out of character thing of heading right back to the part of the compound we're keeping the so-called _subject_.

The subject I just spent a solid hour explaining I don't know how to make useful... Yeah. It seems to be that kind of a day.

"Back so soon?" smiles Dottie seeing me enter. Her calm once again makes me question whether she's really a prisoner here. Because she looks for all the world as someone who's exactly where she wants to be.

"You know I'm a neuroscientist, right?"

"You may have mentioned it in passing."

"You can tell that's the entirely wrong kind of person for dealing with you if the end game is to make you a spy we can use, right? Of course you can. If you didn't before the fact I just showed up for a quick chat about how much of an asshole my boss is is gonna tip you off in three… two…"

"Are you alright, Doctor?" she asks, still smirking. Though there is just a hint of concern in her tone, despite the bravado.

And doesn't that say it all…? When someone who's been brainwashed and enslaved since the earliest childhood, finally broke free for a brief period only to get recaptured and woken up decades later and in the same unescapable situation all over again wants to know if _I'm_ alright...

"Not alright, Dottie. So far from alright in fact I can't even remember the last time…" I say, pacing around the room as she watches me through the transparent wall of her cell, visibly amused. "I mean I'm fine with us using brainwashed assassins because I have to be fine with it, right? I work for Hydra. That comes with the territory. What is _not_ in my job description is to be the person that screws someone's brain so badly they end up what amounts to nothing more than a weapon that, sure, is shaped like a person, but... I mean, this is the kind of crap my father used to do for them... I'm _not_ having a moral dilemma," I say quickly, seeing she's about to accuse me of just that.

"Clearly," she replies, tonelessly. The sarcasm making me roll my eyes.

"I'm not," I repeat. It's about as convincing as it was the first time around. "I know that even if I knew what I was doing there's actually nothing I _can_ do to you. All the damage was done decades ago. You're as broken as someone can be. There's no breaking you further same as there's no putting you back into some approximation of a person again. Your psyche is just… one big scar at this point."

"That's a creepy metaphor."

"Well, so are you. Creepy that is. I'm not insulting you, I'm describing you. And that's actually a hilarious reference but you didn't understand it because of course you didn't. You're stuck living in a world that just about survived a world war. The crap we've been through in just the last decade would melt your brain if you knew."

Her expression makes it clear she's not really seeing the joke, which… fair enough. "Oh, what am I doing…? I mean, really… What is this? Is this me having a breakdown? Because from where I stand it feels like this might be me having a breakdown. And you don't care. You just want out. Which will never happen by the way. They're idiots for keeping you on ice for this long and bigger idiots for waking you up now. It's not even about you, they just wanted a moral boost because their favorite toy started acting like a real boy again and ran off and… you know what? Good for him…"

"I think you're right," she interrupts finally. "You _are_ having a breakdown. Do go on, though. It's rather entertaining."

"Thanks, Dots," I say with a grin that is far from amused.

But then, if I can't laugh at myself who can I laugh at? Definitely not this scary Russian. Everything about her adds up to something that just makes me want to curl up into a ball and cry myself to sleep. She's basically the embodiment of everything I hate about the human nature – a perfect example of the amount of damage someone can take and still keep moving. Carrying long dead parts of themselves around while going through the motions, faking being just fine so thoroughly even they end up believing it.

"So they woke me up to replace someone?" she asks, seemingly just to change the subject. As though she didn't know…

"Yes and no. There was someone you should probably think of as a far superior model. He was around for decades and they got a little too used to having _that_ in their corner. So they decided we can just turn _you_ into Winter Soldier 2.0… Which would be a stupid idea even if everything you knew wasn't so out of date. And I know what you're thinking," I add with a smile that is just a touch more genuine. "And yes, this _is_ a whole lot of classified information I should _not_ be telling you. But what's the point of keeping it from you. You're never going to make use of it. There's no leaving this place for you. They already know you're not really what they want. You'll go back on ice or… Oh. Oh, _Dottie_ ," I say before I can think better of it.

"What?"

" _Don't_ … I saw it," I say, holding her eyes. For the first time it's her that looks away first.

"If you don't think that's the best possible outcome for me you haven't read my file all the way through," she says only and her voice is toneless. Dead. She doesn't even aggressively remind me not to pity her because she doesn't care whether I do.

She's past caring.

She just wants it to be over…

"Well, for what it's worth... I think I might be there with you," I sigh, coming closer to the glass wall separating us.

And when she turns to face you again there's just a hint of her usual smile…

"Suicide pact?" she suggests.

"Sounds great," I grin. And the worst part? I've never meant anything more...


	3. The Experiment

"So let me get this straight. You don't know what to do to make her useful… but you want her assigned to your department _because she might turn out to be useful_ …" he says, frowning at me. "You don't have a problem with that logic?"

"That's not what I said. I said _I have an experiment to run on her_. Never said it will be useful. But since we're on the subject – you insist on using that word when what you mean, really, is _usefully_ _deadly._ That's what's confusing the matter. And I did write you a report on how very deadly she still is. She'll just suck at being a spy because she's more of a time capsule than a person," I state calmly. Pissing him off visibly, though in the end he just lets out a frustrated sigh and asks me what it is I want to do with _the subject._ As he still insists on calling her because of course. Is there anything more dehumanizing to call a person?

"Oh alright - you want the truth, here goes. Since she's of no use to us I was gonna show her _Star Wars_ and vicariously experience the big plot twist for the first time again - or as close as I'm ever going to get in a world where there's no one who doesn't know who Luke Skywalker's father is. And before you start ranting at me about how it's a waste of Hydra resources, let me just remind you – what I do here is extremely stressful. Was before you added what amounts to a timetraveller to the mix. And if I break you have no one to replace me with," I add, since his _what does that have to do with anything_ expression is impossible to ignore. "Moral code wise that is, because we both know there's plenty of others doing research similar to mine. They just wouldn't be anywhere as content being stuck in Siberia for years on end. What I'm trying to say is… All work and no play makes Jack go on a killing spree. So you're gonna let me play for a bit. It's not like you'll be losing anything by it because as we established she is completely useless to you."

"You want to show her _Star Wars_ ," he repeats, clearly just to win himself some time to digest that little speech that managed to make me sound human. Which is the last thing one wants to appear before Hydra higher-ups – and there goes another testament to how far from my usual, content self I am these days.

"I want to show her _the original trilogy._ Let's save the prequels for when we need to torture her," I grin, unable to help myself. "I'll monitor her brain functions if that helps. So we can pretend I did it for science. But just this once I'm doing something just for fun. Because if I don't I'll start screaming."

"You have been exhibiting signs of stress," he comments, somehow still forcing himself to pretend this is a serious conversation. Because what else it could be, both of us being such serious people working for this very serious let's-take-over-the-world secret organization…

"Is that your way of saying that yes, I _can_ borrow the scary Russian killing machine for a _Star Wars_ marathon…?"

He watches me unblinkingly for a few long seconds. Then, he just nods, because if course he does. I left him with no other options.

"Do it tonight. We need to run some further tests on her tomorrow."

"On it," I say, jumping out of the chair and hightailing it out of his office before he can change his mind.

Less than half an hour later that's exactly what I do. I put the movie on, instruct Dottie to keep her eyes on the screen and try not to react to all the things I'm saying under my breath as the droids are making their way across the desert. And...

"You mean it?" she says, just as quietly after I've summed up my plans for her. "You're just going to…"

"Yes," I confirm. "Are you in? Because we've pretty firmly established you've lost the will to live. But if there's a choice to make, me personally, I'd rather die somewhere nice. Watching the sunset, sipping some deadly but painless poison, leaving behind a corpse that will raise more questions than the leopard on the Mount Kilimanjaro. Definitely preferable to dying in a fire. And I'm not saying it just because that's what my last near death experience was like."

"It does sound more pleasant than the alternative," she says, shooting me a quick sideways look before pretending she's all about the double suns again. "And you'll get your revenge this way."

"I'm not being vengeful," I reply. Possibly lying. Even I have trouble telling at this point. "True, it turns out I don't actually _like_ being the bad guy, even if I always accepted I am one. But this isn't me taking some of these assholes with me, this is me faking my death in a really convincing manner so they'll never even bother looking for me."

" _Our_ deaths," she reminds.

"Right. Faking our deaths. Double the losses of what they consider their property," I add sounding just a touch bitter. So maybe I _am_ vengeful.

We lapse into silence for a few minutes. She only breaks it because she reaches a point when she just had it with all those droid shenanigans. "What is this movie even about…?" she says, turning to me.

"What are most stories about? The good guys winning. Meanwhile back here in the real world…" I grin, though I doubt the expression has any amusement in it. "We can go there, you know. I think they shot those Tattoine scenes around Morocco somewhere. And since we're headed to Africa anyway…"

She shoots me a sideways look because even though she took the news about me blowing up the lab in just a few days' time in her stride she did not see this new information coming. Well, of course she didn't. She's known me for less than two weeks – not to mention she's about the only person in the whole compound that has no idea why I can't show my face around those parts. Or anywhere for that matter.

"I mean… we still have two and a half movies to go," I sigh in answer to her unspoken question. "Do you really want to know…?"

She does, apparently.

"Alright – backstory time. There's one thing you absolutely need to know about me and that is that I used to be _a proper scientist_ ," I say, with as much emphasis as I can possibly put on the words. "I wasn't always stuck at a clandestine evil lab in Middle of Nowhere, Siberia. I published, I was respected in my field, I made a bunch of serious breakthroughs... I was, at least on the surface, a well-respected law abiding citizen. That's the kind of people Hydra prefers anyway. Those who can hide in plain sight. I was all that. Obviously I had to alter the facts a little to achieve that because namedropping either of my parents? Not a great idea. At least my father had the decency to get killed by one of his lab rats before he could do any damage to me. But my mother… Yeah, she always considered brain just something she can tweak around according to her designs. I was around ten when she got institutionalized."

That, again, startles her enough to look away from the screen, even if only for a second. "I know, right? A scientist too mad for Hydra. Because I kid you not, they're the ones who got her locked up and got me out of there. Good guy points for the mad scientists," I say, my voice sounding more tired than anything else. "And before you ask yes, of course I spent a lot of my childhood with electrodes on my head. The point is they were both their own brand of evil and known for it too, so if anyone asked I was an orphan. Which was fine with me. Yeah, yeah, I know, your sad backstory still beats my sad backstory. You just needed that for context. To understand whose legacy I am. Meanwhile everybody just thought I was this brilliant child prodigy and so they treated me as _a person_. It was… Yeah… I _didn't_ like that. In that buried deep down way. Not being treated as the pariah I knew I was was getting on my nerves. In retrospect I can tell I was always going to snap. I just didn't expect it to be so dramatic."

"What it is you did exactly…?" she asks, eyes still fixed on the screen showing the panicking droids.

"I was at a conference and I was being talked down from my groundbreaking ideas – as happens when you discovered a paradigm shift and most people aren't up to broadening their horizons. And at some point someone thought it was a good idea to get extra condescending. Now what he said was _listen up young lady –_ and who doesn't love hearing _that_? Anyway. What I heard was _I don't need all my blood where it is if I'm being perfectly honest_... So yeah... I stabbed him. An unarmed, seventy year old man who didn't do a whole lot to provoke me. And I did it in front of _a lot_ of witnesses."

"And that's why you're banned from Africa," she says, sounding just a touch confused, still.

"No, that was just the start of what's going to be one of the best parts of my yet-to-be-written memoirs. Because it will read like Princess Bride. Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge... bunch of local mercenaries breaking me out of a prison transport, Striker glaring at me like he could force choke me… He was _really_ pissed off," I say, even though that doesn't begin to cover it. "See, I was the dependent one. For years he could just leave me to my own devices. No need to waste manpower so someone keeps an eye on me while I'm socializing with the other science types. I've been going from one scientific conference to the next and nothing eventful ever happened. And next thing he knows I'm calling him from prison and asking if we have some extra evil layers because I'm currently wanted in at least two countries…"

"Who is this Striker?" she asks frowns. "You have mentioned him before."

"He used to oversee me. He's the reason I can pull this off too. He'll hear I got myself killed by running _towards_ an explosion rather than away from it, and all just to save what amounts to Hydra property because I saw her as a person and worth saving…? He won't question that story for a second. He always considered me… afflicted with weakness. Creepy way of putting _has remnants of a conscience,_ " I say, rolling my eyes before refocusing my attention on the twin setting suns.

Dottie says nothing, only watches in silence for a while. When she speaks it's in the same vein I just did – a whole lot of unsolicited backstory, all spoken in a dismissive tone of someone who yes, lived through all that, but long since got over it and now merely treats it as a story. Something that, as all stories, only has the power she gives it.

I would find it funny, how she got the concept of _quid pro quo, Clarisse_ even though I haven't gotten around to catching her up on that gem of popculture yet. But having heard what _her_ childhood was like I feel like I might not laugh again. Ever.

"Makes sense," I say, realizing she's done talking. "That you'd want to be able to at least be the one who writes the ending."

Because I _need_ to say something, since this wall between us prevents me from doing the obvious thing of putting my arm around her and lying about everything being alright.

She doesn't reply, but in the reflection on the screen I see a sad smile cross her face for just a heartbeat. "Few more days. Then it'll be over, one way or another."

"Few more days," she nods to herself.

On the screen in front of you, meanwhile, a certain mobile battle station blows up as the good guys cheer, having won the day. It's that kind of a story. The kind of a deal you presumably get if you're one of them. Not that I'd know...


	4. The Escape

"It still makes no sense you know. I mean… Why would you split the twins if Anakin Skywalker didn't even know he had any children...?" she says as I walk into the smoke-filled room, armed with an axe and an expression that tells her I am _not_ discussing _Star Wars_ right now.

I really underestimated how much those stupid space fairytales get to people. Which is what I tell her even as I instruct her to back away from the glass in the same breath.

"Here's Johnny..." I grin as I bury the axe in the transparent wall of her cell.

" _What?_ " she asks automatically. Then, realizing what happened, _again_ , she just rolls her eyes at me and does the rest of the brute work of wrecking the wall, getting herself out in under a minute.

"I'll have you know _that_ was hilarious," I say as she joins me on the other side, in the lab that's getting smokier by the second. "This bromance is going too be high maintenance, isn't it?" I mutter, shaking my head as I hand her a coat she can put over the simple tunic she wears in her capacity as a lab rat.

"What's _a bromance_?" she asks, now almost automatically, because it's been new terms all the time ever since she got unfrozen.

"Oh, you know. An unspeakably stupid word for a friendship. That only exist because you're apparently not supposed to create deep bonds with people you don't want to have sex with, especially if you're afflicted with the y-chromosome, because god forbid... it's really dumb," I sigh in closing, since this is really no time for me to start ranting. _This_ is a time to start hurrying through the maze of corridors towards the getaway vehicle I have stashed between two buildings I had the sneaking feeling are about to demonstrate just how flammable they are.

"So this is a bromance," she says in just-so-I'm-getting-the-terminology-right tone.

"Basically. But – and let me get this straight right now – _not_ one that has the power to have me discuss the Skywalkers while everything is on fire. Even though that _would_ be a nice metaphor for what their family drama did to the galaxy."

"I thought they saved the galaxy," she says, easily keeping up with me even though she's been stuck in a tiny cell for something close to two weeks now.

"It's… complicated. The galaxy wouldn't need saving if one of them wasn't both incredibly powerful and _sooo_ easy to manipulate."

Which is where I thankfully get to drop the subject because we made it outside, both sporting only a mild case of carbon monoxide poisoning and both ready to get on with leaving the premises before the whole place goes truly explosive.

"You know," I say, taking the driver's seat and quickly wiping my eyes, tearing up from all the smoke, "days like this make me feel like I need to make some major changes. This is the third goddamn time I had to..."

"Break out a prisoner?" she says, raising her eyebrows.

"No – run from a burning lab," I explain.

" _Three_ labs burned around you…?"

"Well, the first one wasn't really this kind of super secret Hydra operation. Still flammable though. So flammable," I say, shaking my head to clear _those_ memories.

"You know," she says, forcing herself to look on the road as the car heads off into the darkness of the nearby woods, unnoticed in all the chaos, "you would think, considering what I do and what you do, one of us should have a more eventful life. How come we come out about the same…?"

"Because you can't have things uneventful when you work for these people. They're the _Evil Galactic Empire_. Or want to be. Couple of decades to get that underway and… yeah, you may have noticed, we are _not_ ruling the world yet…"

"They."

"What?" I say, turning to her in confusion.

" _They_ are not ruling the world. You are not one of them – not anymore. Wasn't that the point of all this…?" she reminds. And dammit, she's right. It'll get some getting used to but, yes, having done this I got my Hydra credentials revoked once and for all.

"Feels great," I smile to myself. "Even if all I can smell is singed hair and all I can hear is that voice telling me how disappointing my parents would find me. Which is good. I want to disappoint them. That's how I know I'm doing the right thing… Anything those psychopaths would disapprove of must be right just by default."

She says nothing, just leaves me to my self-satisfaction for the time being. And as the fire rages further and further behind us and the night progresses towards a bleak, Siberian dawn she once again starts to interrogate me on the subject of a certain galaxy far, far away. Which helps. In a way only introducing normalcy into what seems on a surface a perfectly insane situation can. Because while I'm trying to explain to her the convoluted weirdness that are the _prequels_ it's a lot easier to silence that voice inside my head – the one that insists on panicking because _what did you do? where are you going – with a complete stranger you've known for less than a few days and who is NOT TO BE TRUSTED?_

But while she might, yes, objectively be incredibly dangerous, at least she's not a specialist on machine assisted brainwashing – like my father before me, and isn't that one hell of a legacy…?

"So… where are we going…?" she asks finally a few minutes later.

"Japan, by a very convoluted route. We may have to steal a ship and… why did I know you'll get all excited about that…?" I say, finding I'm grinning at her immediate response to those news.

"I'm a woman of action. And I didn't do anything other than pace my cell and sat through interrogations since I woke up in this century."

" _And_ got infected by one of its most pervasive popculture memes. I mean…" I grin apologetically, since the word _infected_ startled her as it would anyone from a time period of less than effective medicine. " _Star Wars_. It's a meme. An infectious idea that roots itself in people's minds and next thing they know they don't even notice they just referred to something as _fully operational_ …" I shrug.

"What a strange concept," she shakes her head. And proceeds to interrogate me about it. Because she may be many things – deadly and deeply traumatized and still shaken by the timejump she was put through… and _curious_. That too. And so I indulge her because Siberia is huge, getting to the nearest city of decent size will take most of the day and, well, we do have to kill the time somehow.

And so we do.

We murder the hell out of the next few days. They just slip by in a series of increasingly exciting events that all somehow feel like the kind of thing you ought to do if your bonding roadtrip begun by burning down a Hydra compound. Before I know it I'm boarding a private place that will deliver me and Dottie to Tunisia because where else would we go? It there ever was a duo destined to hang around Mos Eisley's it's us.

"I think the term _problematically evil_ sums it up best," I say after frowning at the problem of phrasing for a few moments. "Because we're both definitely _not_ good people, right?"

"I don't mind being called _evil_. I make it look good," she adds with a smirk. I roll my eyes, though, obviously she has a point.

"But then you look at our track record of late and it's like… we should get our evil credential revoked. I mean sure, we blew up a building. Definitely evil. But, _plot twist_ , it was a secret lab full of evil scientists. And I worked with those people. If we accidentally killed some of them, that's just further good guy points."

"I think you're overthinking this."

"Am I?" I frown, suspecting she might be right.

"You're also treating this as a mathematical problem, which it's not. There are no… _good guy points_ ," she says, making a face. "Life isn't an equation that needs to be balanced. Life just… is. You try to survive as much of it as you can."

"That's a _good_ philosophy," I comment. And mean it. Simple as her theory of life, the universe and everything seems to be it still strikes a cord with me. And so I find myself asking the obvious question. "So are we still going to…?"

"Ask me when we get there."

I do. I ask her the same question the second I can get my laughter over her complaints over sand under control because unknowingly she just went full Annie and… "Never go full Annie…" I say between bursts of laughter. Which is obviously not the explanation she wanted. "Sorry. Just… please don't treat sand like your nemesis. I know it's coarse, rough and irritating… and it gets everywhere…"

"Is that a popcultural reference?" she says, eyes narrowing.

" _Maybe_ ," I grin. "So… I have some neurotoxins on me…" I say then, which might be a little to brutal a change of subject but it does need to be said. Because I already know what she's going to tell me…

"Why don't we do that tomorrow?" she suggests casually. And it's not because she suddenly found a liking for the mostly barren desert you're stuck looking at out here. She just knows - dead is an inevitability and life is a choice. And the life she lived? She so rarely got to make choices for herself...

"One more day won't hurt anyone…" I agree, smiling at the single sun just about deciding to sink bellow the horizon. "Good night, Westley. I'll kill you in the morning," I add under my breath because I couldn't have stopped myself if I tried.

"What was that?" she asks. In a tone that isn't really annoyed, even as it lets you know she knows that was yet another popcultural reference she couldn't help but miss.

" _Princess Bride_ ," I reply. "It's this fairytale adventure…"

"What it is with you and fairytales?" she says, shaking her head at me. Even though she's the one wearing mostly beige as one would on Tattoine, which is something I refuse to point out. Letting her stay in denial about her liking for those space magic stories is far more amusing.

"I actually didn't get to see that many back when I was target audience because my childhood…"

"Was a nightmare…?"

"Yep. So I first saw it… In a safehouse surrounded by some seriously scary mercenaries," I say, recalling the details. "It was a supremely weird situation from the get go and... yeah. This was the same day I got broken out of prison and officially disappeared off the face of the Earth. Good times. And somehow it's still a fond memory. Might be because it's a great movie," I shrug as she turns to me with a questioning smile. "And hey, since we're postponing the whole double suicide thing and have no better plans for the evening…"

She agrees surprisingly easily. Well, yes – what life she had back in the forties was so obviously lacking in entertainment it stands to reason she's all for indulging, now that there are no enemies to keep an eye out for. What people she had to fear she managed to outlive. Which is definitely the best way to go about it, even if she had no say in it.

"Alright. Let's go," she says as the sun finally sets over the annoyingly coarse, rough and irritating desert before turning around to head back for the car.

"As you wish," I grin.

"Was that another one…?"

"Maybe… Look, it's _fun_ to play this game with you, alright? Because you can always tell I did something and never have any idea _what_ and it's obviously low key pissing you off… It gives me an excuse to catch you up on popculture. Which is far more pleasant than catching you up on the current events. It's gone really crazy over the last few years. I'm talking the Norse gods are real and have tech like you wouldn't believe and one has been roughing it on Earth for a while and his brother went all dark side and tried to enslave us with this army of aliens from god knows where a few years back and… Wouldn't you prefer to watch a fun fairytale over getting a dose of _that_ …?"

"I would," she admits.

"Alright then. So let's go back to the hotel and watch _Princess Bride_."

Which is exactly what we do. And the next day, unsurprisingly, she wants to postpone the fatal dose of neurotoxins I smuggled from the compound just one more day. Watch just one more sunset, spend just a few more hours of late night googling discovering how much the world has change since she was doing her Sleeping Beauty routine.

And so the days go by.

Life goes on. Even for the villains.


	5. The end of the world as we know it

YEARS LATER

"You know what's happening, don't you?" she says. And she's too horrified by the destruction that happened – that _keeps happening_ all around us – to even sound accusing. " _What did this?_ "

"It wasn't them," I say, having hard time recognizing my voice, it sounds so distant through the veil of shock. "I know what this looks like but _this wasn't Hydra_. It couldn't have been. They only ever had the one…"

"What are you talking about?" she snaps even as she drags me to cover of a nearby café. Because being out in the open as cars devoid of drivers keep swerving out of control and planes without pilots drop out of the sky is _not_ the greatest survival strategy. "Hey," she shakes me, forcing me to look her in the eyes. " _What is happening?_ "

"It's the _Stones_... Must be," I say in a shaking voice. "Look, this is all just a scary story. You'd overhear it if you were with Hydra as long as I was because so much weirdness happened in the early days and Redskull just disappeared without trace and..."

"Well _something_ did this. If you have an explanation I need to know," says Dottie, catching my hesitation to talk about it.

"No, you _don't_. Knowing how this happened won't stop it happening. That's not what we need to be doing now," I say, forcing the voice in my head that just keeps screaming in wordless horror at the desolation all around me to shut up for a while so I can think. "It's not everyone. We're still here. It's not killing _everyone_. That means..."

"Yes?" she says, still gripping my forearms a little too tightly as she struggles with her own terror.

"It can be survived and _we survived it_. And there's aftermath to be dealt with. Something most people will be too shellshocked to do."

I don't say the rest. I don't have to. She caught my meaning perfectly. I see it even as her eyes stray to a little boy, about five, looking panicked as he's failing to open the door of the car he's in. _Alone_.

She doesn't hesitate for a moment as she runs out to open the door for him and tells him to go stay in the café because it's not safe outside.

It's _that_ obvious what we're going to do next. _The only thing there is to do…_

The street outside is both loud and eerily devoid of human voices. What people are there are looking around in wordless terror, unable to comprehend the situation. Even the wounded don't scream, too deep in shock to react to pain as they stumble around, their ash covered faces wearing the same numb expressions. No one is even daring to call out the names of people they just saw disintegrate right before their eyes.

I note the silence and force myself not to think about it as I start inspecting the motionless cars one by one, forcing the often reluctant passengers to leave them, move away, gather somewhere in a safe distance from vehicles that in a lot of cases look damaged enough to start exploding in the next moment.

"Out. _Now_ ," I hear Dottie say, yanking yet another catatonic person out of their car. This one a police officer and it's obvious it would never occur to him to move until she made him. He was just sitting there, staring at the seat his partner used to occupy.

"We can't trust the emergency services to handle this," I say, catching up with her. "No one is trained to deal with… the end of the world," I finish, feeling a hysterical laughter rising up in me. I force it down. It might be the hardest thing I ever I did but I do force it down because I know – if I start laughing now I'll never stop. I'll never even notice when laughter turned to a scream.

And so I don't allow myself. I find something better to do. And there is _so much to do_.

Dottie just gives me a single, grim nod of agreement and continues to do the same. A few people, seeing our example, start moving too. Slowly at first, uncertain what to actually do to help.

"Just put out the fires you see," I say to a woman who meets my eyes as I help her carry a badly injured teenage girl out of the wreck of her car. "Everyone will remember where they were when this happened. And what they did next. That is what matters."

"Yes," she whispers. And even as her eyes finally brim over and tears spill down her ashen cheeks she starts taking her shirt off to press it against the girl's leg, slashed open and bleeding heavily.

There is a sound of explosion from somewhere up the block, startling all three of us.

"It's fine. I've got this," says Dottie, already starting to run in that direction.

Straight into danger – and I feel no fear for her, none at all. For years, whenever things got dangerous, I reminded myself she's been through worse so of course she can take it. Today, for the first time, that is no longer the case. _No one_ ever has been through something even close to this. Still I trust her to be fine. Because if there's someone who can take it – yes, even _this_ , whatever this incomprehensible wave of obliteration actually is – it's her.

"Does anyone else need medical attention?" I say then, turning around to check on the shellshocked crowd around me. Even though it's been years since I made use of my medical training I still seem to be the best chance these people have. And so I do what I can. _Whatever I can_.

In so many cases it's simply not enough.

I lose sight of Dottie for what feels like hours and when I find her again she's more ashen than before and there's something in her arms. A bundle. A… "Oh…" I say, recognizing what she's carrying.

"I think she's just a few weeks old. There was no one… around…" says Dottie, looking at me with a kind of hopeless desperation I've never seen her exhibit before. I've never felt more kinship with another human being than in that moment.

"Can someone take her? I can't... I... have to keep helping the injured," I say, straightening from an old man whose internal injuries were too much for me to do anything about. Would be for anyone, even if I had any decent supplies on hand. "We need to keep helping," I say, angrily wiping the tears from my cheeks as Dottie hands the child over to an elderly woman that comes forward from the crowd of survivors.

...

We live through those longest hours of our lives. We… _survive_.

Which is really the best that can be said for the madness of that day. It was survived. By many. By a lot less than the people who were spared the instant death that came from one moment to the next.

The deathcount was far worse than that. Too much to comprehend, even for me. And I was the one getting blood on my hands trying, fighting to save at least some. At a least a few. Because every single life counted and every loss, every death, was too much to bear on a day like this. And still we kept losing more.

"Whatever did this," I find myself saying, later, what feels like years later, finally having found a moment to wash the blood and ash from my hands.

"Yes…?" she says, catching hold of my hands to stop me from scrubbing them, because I'm now at a point where I might scrub off my skin and not notice, just keep doing it.

I shoot her a grateful look, uncertain whether I could have stopped if she didn't make me.

"I don't know what it was. I really don't. But whatever got all those stones together and..." I take a shaky breath and find there's nothing I can say because I can't begin to imagine a being, however alien, that would be capable of such casual act of destruction. Something that was over in just a few seconds.

Something that will _never_ be over to those of us who had to live through it.

"Do you feel like it's over?" says Dottie, bringing my attention back to her. "This was the longest day of my life. And you know what _my_ life was like," she says with a brief, mirthless laugh. "But we survived it. The sun has set. Even the worst day _ends with a sunset_. Right?"

"So why does it feel like tomorrow will be just as bad…?" I say, feeling that's what she was trying to say. And she's right. A tragedy on this scope… It doesn't just end. It doesn't get better, one day at a time. It... _stays_. "A part of every single day that follows because this won't just fade… won't just become _history_ …" I find myself saying before falling silent because my words are not helping.

She doesn't need me to say anything. She just needs me to be here – I know because that's all I need from her. That's the only thing that'll help us face a tomorrow no less horrifying that today was.

"Staying here isn't a good idea," she says then, when she can no longer take the silence. "But there's no one else who can step up. Most of these people are hopeless... catatonic... and even those who can function have no idea what to prioritize. They keep talking about Wakanda..."

"That's not an option. They just lost half of their population too," I remind. Not that she doesn't know.

"And everyone expects them to just swoop in and save the day all the same."

"It's human nature. They just want someone to tell them it's alright. They'll take it from here," I sigh. "No one is built for this much responsibility. Elsewhere they're probably expecting the Avengers to show up any moment to put out the fires for them..."

"Why do people do that? Just expect for someone to do the hard thing for them."

"Because there was a time when that's exactly what happened. Someone did the hard thing for them. We never had that..." I remind. "It's what childhood is like. Or so I'm told."

"Ah. Yes. That does explain it..." she says. Adding, almost as an afterthought… "If we stay this visible Hydra _will_ catch up to us still being alive."

" _Half_ of Hydra," I remind. "We can handle half of Hydra."

She tries to smile and then the moment is over. And it's time to do the hard thing again... and again...To do all the hard things you never expected someone else to do for you. A side effects of your respective nightmarish early years.

They might have left you scarred, but they made you tough, too.

Nowhere near tough enough to be able to deal with something like this, but compared to the others, the masses of the traumatized survivors, you seem to be doing great. Putting out one fire at the time. Almost forgetting that you're the kind of people who normally start them. But that's what cataclysm like this does. Brings out the best in people - even the _worst_ of people...


End file.
